Last year’s Cartographer’s Annual – Volume 16 – is now available as a complete setup, all monthly issues collected into one single package. Subscribers who downloaded all the monthly issues don’t need to do anything, but if you skipped some issues or are a fresh owner of Volume 16, you can install everything in one go now. The setup is available from the registration page as usual. If you didn’t subscribe, waiting for it to become available as one single package, you can now purchase it from the Annual’s page or the store as usual.

Last year saw a bit of focus on battle maps and floorplans, but also ranged to electronic system maps and overland styles. The stars of the show (for me at least) were the battle map styles Creepy Crypts and Forest Trail by Sue Daniel – both so resource and work intensive we had to split them into two parts. But her Winter Village set was also extremely beautiful. It was also great to see Pär Lindström back with the wonderfully illustrative Book of Maps style.

Personally, I was happy to let some of my travel inspirations flow into the Island Chains issue and revisit Jon Roberts‘ awesome overland style. But the Tactical Maps style I developed from a commission for Pelgrane Press was also great fun to create.

For the coming year we are looking to include more new talent again and are actively looking for artists who are interested in creating an Annual issue style for us. See Simon’s call here.

The current Annual 2023 subscription has now started and the January issue is available. So if this retrospective on 2022 did wet your appetite, check it out here.

In our weekly live mapping series on YouTube I’ve recently begun to revisit the first styles that I created for the Cartographer’s Annual back in 2007. Sue Daniel was inspired to use these herself for some example maps, and as you’d expect the resulting maps are gorgeous pieces of art. See for yourself!

Mercator Historical

The very first Annual issue took the maps of perhaps the most famous cartographer of history as inspiration for some large-scale overland mapping. You can see me using it here.

Here is the map Sue came up with using the default Mercator style.

(Download the FCW file)

Not satisfied with the looks, she expanded on the style with colours and effects to produce this beautiful variant.

(Download the FCW file)

If you want to recreate Sue’s version, you can take a look at her sheets to see the effects she implemented, and you’ll need this little symbol catalog for the decorations on the map border.

John Speed City

The second Annual style was inspired by another historical cartographer: John Speed. The live video showing its use is here.

Sue used the John Speed City style to create a map of the early modern town of Dorchester.

(Download the FCW file)

Again, there is a symbol catalog with the extra material that Sue created for the map.